Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Correction...Not Perfection

(This blog was originally posted on October 17,
2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

As
with any behavior-modification program—which hypnotherapy is, by the
way—clients typically come in with a list of all the things they believe are
“wrong” with them. They can’t stay away from sweet or high-calorie/high-fat
foods. They can’t give up cigarettes. They can’t get over the former spouse or
lover and accept that the relationship is truly over. They don’t like to be or
even feel safe when they are outside their comfort zone, an area that may not
extend beyond the confines of their home. They “completely freak out” when they
see a spider. And so on.

In addition to
changing or abolishing the negative behavior, clients often want to know how it
took hold in the first place. I couch this explanation in the context of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s model, Theory
of Mind. Basically, the person learned
to do “x” or adopted “y” belief by imitating, or modeling, these behaviors they
observed in their social environment. A parent or guardian, peer or another
role model explicitly or implicitly taught the individual to do it, and the
person derived some kind of reward for doing it, too.

Another
factor comes into play here, too: constant repetition of the behavior
reinforces its strength and significance in the subconscious mind. There is a
lot of truth to the expression, “Perfect practice makes perfect performance,”
and this is especially true when it comes to reinforcing any behavior in
the subconscious mind. Remember, the SCM does not know the difference between
fantasy and reality, objective observation and a joke. So long as the behavior
is giving the person some kind of positive feedback (pleasure), the individual
will continue to do (practice) that activity. Furthermore, this practice is
perfect, as far as the subconscious mind is concerned.

I
help my hypnotherapy clients change unwanted behaviors or beliefs by rewriting
the content of the subconscious
mental script that previously reinforced those old patterns. Since
everything we do and believe has been learned, these patterns can also be
corrected and even un-learned when we decide they no longer work for us
or serve our best interest. Then we can create a different, positive mental
script and continue to reinforce the behaviors and attitudes that will help us
accomplish our new self-improvement goals.